Rating:

If you prefer to see Sanjay Dutt fitter and more awake, you might want to venture into All The Best: The Fun Begins, the latest from the Rohit Shetty-Ajay Devgn combine.

The director-producer-star duo, who also gave us Golmaal and Golmaal Returns, seem to have concocted a workable comic formula.
Several characters gather in a single location, usually a large house. The comedy stems from lies or mistaken identity or a few well-placed slaps but the gags are non- stop.

To prevent it from becoming a large screen television-sitcom, Shetty also bungs in at least one metal-crunching action sequence and at least two mind-boggling, over-the-top song sequences.
All the Best has all this but unlike their last venture, Golmal Returns, this film is actually funny. Of course the humour is the type you thought you left behind in the college canteen.
The story, adapted from a play called Right Bed, Wrong Husband, is pure farce. Ajay and Fardeen Khan, play Prem and Vir, two friends who live in Goa. Vir’s super-rich, jet-setting step-brother Dharam, played by Sanjay Dutt, supports him by sending monthly pocket money but he is too busy to ever visit.

To increase the monthly check, Vir lies and tell Dharam that he is married. One day, Dharam unexpectedly arrives in Goa and mistakes Prem’s wife Jhanvi, played by Bipasha Basu, for Vir’s wife and Vir’s girlfriend, Vidya, played by Mugda Godse, for Prem’s girlfriend. Are you following this? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Shetty, working from a screenplay by Robin Bhatt and Yunus Sajawal, keeps the jokes coming at a fast and furious pace.

The friends scramble hard to keep their lies afloat. Did I mention that they are also being chased by a villain, played by Johnny Lever, who seems to be the direct descendent of Premnath’s Sir Judah in Subhash Ghai’s Karz. Tubo cannot talk but communicates by hitting a spoon against a glass.

Prem and Vir like to watch classic Hrishkesh Mukherjee comedies but the humour here has none of the wit or sophistication of the master. This is pure PJ land. A sampler: When Vir is down, Prem asks: Tera papa photographer tha kya, tu hamesha itna negative kyun sochta hai or when Vir unknowingly pours sauce all over his girlfriend’s father, he says mujhe itna afsauce hai.

It’s seriously low IQ but you can’t stop laughing. The actors are having such a good time that their energy is infectious.

Ajay and Sanjay play off each other like pros and even Fardeen manages a few genuinely funny expressions. The energy dips in the second half and the film climaxes in an outlandish African angle. So we have lots of actors in black-face, which would be offensive if it wasn’t so obviously silly.

All the Best is gleefully and unpretentiously moronic. I know film critics should set the bar higher but honestly, this is probably the most fun you’ll have in a theater this weekend. Go for It.